Populist House Republicans Rejecting Woke Corporations over ESG Policies

Lobbyists for “woke” corporations adopting “equality and climate goals” have reportedly faced problems when meeting with populist House Republicans.

As corporations are adopting “equality and climate goals” across the county, the lobbyists for some corporations are “going to have a hell of a time getting back into the good graces of Republicans,” John Feehery, a former House Republican aide who now works at EFB Advocacy, a lobbying firm, told Bloomberg.

Bloomberg’s Laura Davison explained that corporations and their representatives who are starting to meet with the incoming Republicans — which are typically meant to be friendly after an election —  are not going as well this year, according to one lobbyist business association, who asked not to be identified to speak freely.

The lobbyist said that the issue for the incoming freshman class of Republicans is the “deep-rooted opinions and little experience with trade policy, the debt limit or the policies surrounding [Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) policies].”

ESG policies, as Breitbart News has previously reported, are a form of leftist activism in financial investing that has become the latest vector to influence the way Wall Street financial firms and corporations continue to take social and political positions that do not relate to their business, such as stances associated with climate change, as well as the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) agenda. For example, Wall Street firms, such as BlackRock, sell ESG as a way to invest according to specific criteria that the political left pushes on voters and consumers.

Davison wrote that the breach between populist Republicans and big business started with former President Donald Trump — who recently announced a bid for a third term — when he attacked the corporate executives from when many companies decided to suspend campaign donations to Republicans who denied the 2020 presidential election result after the January 6 incident.

However, Davison also acknowledged that many lawmakers, lobbyists, and former congressional aides emphasized that the tensions with the new group of Republicans are because the new group is more focused on social and cultural issues than business priorities.

Additionally, as Davison mentioned, many of the faces in Congress have changed over the year, as over half of the Republicans that were in office in 2017 will not be there in January when the new group is sworn in. For example, Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), an ally to the business community, and Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX), the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, are both retiring.

Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN), who heads the Republican Study Committee, characterized the split between corporations and Republicans to Bloomberg as a divorce, which has made his party healthier. He also alluded to his party focusing on American workers and being able to put more distance between itself and ESG policies, which he told Bloomberg is a “scam” that hurts Americans and helps China.

In fact, similar to Bank’s stance on ESG policies, Sen.-elect J.D. Vance (R-OH), who will fill Portman’s seat in January, told Breitbart News in October in an interview that “ESG is basically a massive racket to enrich Wall Street and enrich the financial sector of the country, at the expense of the industries that actually employ a lot of Ohio’s workers for middle-class jobs.”

Vance, a former venture capitalist, added, “ESG is basically a racket to destroy what we still have so that a few people on Wall Street can make some money.”

Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jbliss@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter @JacobMBliss.